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• 1 2018-03-27T13:45:37-07:00 William S. Soule Digital Project 21 plain 2018-04-16T17:53:53-07:00 This site examines images from the William S. Soule Photograph Collection, housed at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History in Austin, Texas. The project is the result of an experimental graduate seminar in digital and public history at the University of Texas, Spring 2018. The site was co-created by Sheena Cox and Ted Banks, both Ph.D. Students in the UT history department. Our goal is to give historical analysis and context to selected images from the collection to provide the public with material for teaching and understanding nineteenth century Native American history through early photographs.
  
  The Photo on the cover page "Scalped Hunter," became popular in the American imagination after its publication in Harper's Ferry magazine, in 1868. The picture shows two men kneeling beside a frontiersman whose throat has just been slashed by a "violent native." The man on the left holds the reins of his trusty horse in one hand as he looks at the slain man in despair.  Even the horse seems a solemn spectacle. The man to the right sits upright, tall, this is not his first experience with frontier death. His hands are perfectly placed and his hat is tilted just right. The image captures the bloody death of frontier life, and Anglo suffering, but also bravery in the face hardship, just as North Easterners imagined it. Although there is no Indian in the photo his presence looms as the "savage" murderer. Soul's work helped sensationalize ideas of the Western frontier and simultaneously helped justify violence and dispossession against non-white peoples by depicting them as the agitators.   
  
  The year after the publication of "Scalped Hunter,", Soule was hired as a frontier photographer, and stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and Fort Dodge, Kansas. Soul's military assignments are vague, but this particular collection includes photos of Indian Chiefs, burned Indian villages, captives, landscape, and blurry images of what appear to be Buffalo Soldiers. Soul's images reflect the stereotypical beliefs held by most Anglo-Americans and further reinforced this misconception.     
  
  Our thanks and gratitude to Dr. Joan Neuberger, Not Even Past https://notevenpast.org/, The University of Texas History Department, Dr. Erika Bsumek, and The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.  
• 1 2018-04-16T17:52:58-07:00 Scalped Hunter by William Soule 6 plain 2018-05-02T01:07:15-07:00 The photo on the cover page "Scalped Hunter" became popular in the American imagination after its publication in Harper's Ferry magazine, in 1868. The picture shows two men kneeling beside a frontiersman whose throat has just been slashed by a "violent native." The man on the left holds the reins of his trusty horse in one hand as he looks at the slain man in despair.  Even the horse seems a solemn spectacle. The man to the right sits upright, tall; this is not his first experience with frontier death. His hands are perfectly placed and his hat is tilted just right. The image captures the bloody death of frontier life, and Anglo suffering, but also bravery in the face hardship, just as North Easterners imagined it. Although there is no Indian in the photo his presence looms as the "savage" murderer. Soule's work helped sensationalize ideas of the Western frontier and simultaneously helped justify violence and dispossession against non-white peoples by depicting them as the agitators.   
  The year after the publication of "Scalped Hunter," Soule was hired as a photographer for the US Army, and stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and Fort Dodge, Kansas. It is not clear what, beyond photography, Soule's assignment was, but this particular collection includes photos of Indian Chiefs, burned Indian villages, captives, landscape, and blurry images of what appear to be Buffalo Soldiers. Soule's images reflect the stereotypical beliefs held by most Anglo-Americans and further reinforced popular  misconceptions regarding Native Americans.